On Corporations

“I hope we shall…crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816

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“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country…corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.”

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864

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“The first truth is that liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling power. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.”

FDR

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I believe corporations’ roles should be solely that of a business–with liability protections. But corporations should not be political entities. For corporations to have “personhood” and for them to thus function politically as Super-Citizens, that is not what the Constitution ever specified nor did our Founding Fathers, whose own revolt was against the collusion of a King and the transnational corporations of the Colonial period, ever intend.  Business yes, politics no!  And, “personhood”, Hell No!

Ron Stouffer

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